Tags
drafts, Herculine Barbin, hypertext, intersex, memoir, translation
[This is the 4th draft of my translation, the previous three drafts are shown in my translator’s journal]
Some time later the pains I’d been having returned more frequently, more intensely. Sara was worried, constantly nagging me to see a doctor. I didn’t want to agree for anything but the violence of the pain made me give in.
Informed by her daughter, Madame P… called Doctor T… I’ve never forgotten that visit; I can recall the smallest details of it, even now. It was nearly six o’clock in the evening. We hadn’t yet lit the lamps. The apartment I found myself in with the doctor was plunged into a semi-darkness but I didn’t complain. The answers I gave to his questions mystified rather than enlightened him. He wanted to examine me. As far as doctors and patients are concerned, we all know that the doctor enjoys certain privileges that the patient can’t contest. During this operation I heard him sighing, as if he wasn’t satisfied with his examination. Madame P… was there, waiting for him to speak.
I was waiting too, but in an entirely different frame of mind. Standing by my bed, the doctor looked at me with interest. Several times he let slip heavy exclamations like: “My God! Is it possible!”
I understood from his gestures that he would’ve liked to prolong the examination to bring the truth to light!!!…
He lifted up the bedcovers. My disordered clothes revealed the upper part of my body! The doctor’s hand wandered over it, indecisive, trembling, until it reached my abdomen, the site of my pain. While groping about he undoubtedly pressed where it hurt most as I let out a piercing cry and vigorously pushed him away. He then sat down next to me, gently insisting that I gather my courage; no doubt he needed to do the same. His faltering expression betrayed an extraordinary agitation.
“I beg you,” I said to him “get off, you’re killing me!”
“Mademoiselle, I only ask you to give me one minute, then it will be done.”
He slipped his hand under the sheet and went straight for the sensitive spot. He pressed down on it several times as if by doing so he could find the solution to a difficult problem. His hand didn’t stop there!!! He found the explanation he was looking for! But it was obvious that it surpassed all his expectations! The poor man was overcome with a terrible emotion. Several times he started to speak but kept stopping himself, as though he were afraid of what he might say. I wished he were a hundred feet under the ground!!!
Madame P… understood nothing of what was going on. Out of pity for me she wanted to cut short this exhausting scene by taking the doctor away.
“Goodbye, mademoiselle,” he said to me, half-smiling; “we’ll be seeing each other again!!!”
I got up straight away to re-join Sara who was busy in the study. She questioned me with a look. In a few words I told her what had happened.
At dinner I noticed that Madame P… was more serious than usual. She could not hide her feelings; her anxiety and her confusion were visible. When the meal was over I went to warm myself in the kitchen a moment; “Mademoiselle Camille,” she said to me, “I have sent for the medicine the doctor prescribed. But he won’t be coming back; I’m totally against it.”
What did such an order, from her, signify? Did she know something, and fear to know more? I asked myself this without actually acknowledging that she’d spoken. When we to bed, Sara told me that the doctor had had a long chat with her mother. But that was all. It was enough to fill me with fears that were shared by my friend!!! I later learned that, during that ultimate chat, the doctor had asked Madame P… a plethora of delicate questions about me without overtly explaining why. She had barely replied, being incapable of believing the thoughts that motivated these questions. Her soul wasn’t open to suspicion; she couldn’t bear it, she rejected it wholeheartedly. Faced with such blind obstinacy, the doctor decided he wasn’t obliged to take the initiative that his title and faith usually demanded of him as an honest man. He contented himself with suggesting that I be removed from her house as soon as possible, believing that, with this, he had cleared himself of all responsibility.
Let me repeat it: his duty demanded a different course of action. In similar circumstances, indecision was not allowed, it was a serious error, not simply morally, but also in the eyes of the law. Frightened of the secret he’d uncovered, he preferred to bury it forever!